The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Today I decided I would stop feeling useless and sorry for myself and fucking ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING. Because, you know, that’s the best way to not feel that way. I hadn’t really written any fiction in awhile, so I decided that’s what I’d do. I’d sit down, and I’d write some fucking fiction, like a writer! Yeah, that’s the ticket, I would write something. Fuck yeah.

I sat down and opened Microsoft Word, and tried to think of a story idea I’d developed enough to actually write down. Sadly, all I could come up with was an idea I had for some furry porn, but dammit, I was going to write something, so I started writing on it anyway. It’s porn time! Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.

I occurred to me about a page or so in that I had really made no reference to these characters being furries yet. I went back and started changing some things, but it felt wrong, so I changed them back. I guess they’re humans then, that’s cool. I mean, I hear some people like pornography involving humans, as strange as that sounds. I continued on. A thousand words or so later, I realized how little this story had to do with fucking. I mean, fucking was a big part of it, sure. But that wasn’t the point. It was about these characters finding love and falling into this odd situation with technology. You know, a cyberpunk kind of story. Only with fucking. I had been percolating the concept so long in my head, I made the characters, to me anyway, too people-y, and thus I wanted to tell their whole story, not just their bedroom antics. I didn’t let this revelation stop me though. I mean, I finished the story. It went where it was going, and when it got there, it was done.

I then looked back over the whole thing. What I had was neither pornography nor a serious, literary short story. If it was supposed to be pornography, well goodness, I’d have to add a lot more description of all the fucking that occurs in the story. The framing device would probably have to be thrown out, because it’s a downer, and pornography is supposed to be an upper. If it’s a serious short story, it’s lacking conflict. What conflict is there is brushed over quickly. I would need to spend some time really fleshing out the characters more, make them not pornographic stereotypes, and show the conflict more between them, instead of just saying it happened. The framing device could stay, but would need to be more seriously involved in the story. The more I thought about it, basically either path would basically double the size of the story, at least. Not that that’s a bad thing. But basically, the story has a ways to go after this first draft, no matter how I slice it. I’ll probably try to make it legit.

The whole experience, and this is the reason I wanted to write about it, really made me wonder about the difference between writing porn and writing a short story. I mean, in my head, there’s a clear difference. One is a legit craft that I work on honing, and one is something fun I do to distract myself when I’m horny. But a lot of work I’m most proud of, including the story that I’ve managed to get published, have near-pornographic themes and depictions of sex. I set out to write those to write a short story, one that works as I believe a story does, and has conflict, characters, and so on. But when I set to write something pornographic, I mean, I’m still thinking about a lot of the same things. The only difference is the solution to whatever conflict there is has to be fucking. But that’s a possible solution in a real story, too. No reason it can’t be. There’s also no reason a “legit” story can’t be sexy. Granted, a short story might not be the best place for a superfluous sex scene, as you’re trying to keep your used space to a minimum, but some sexy times are always nice, if they’re appropriate for the characters.

I think what shocked me is that I didn’t set out to write something I wanted to make really good. I set out to write that pornographic distraction. Yet that wasn’t what came out. It’s that intent, I think, that I’ve always used to determine whether or not a story is pornographic whatever, or something I should make really good and think about publishing. Again, this story needs a lot of revision before it is any good, but the pieces are there. When I write porn, I normally take a “fuck it, just write, it doesn’t matter” kind of approach, and do things like not name the characters or basically anything else I have difficulty with when writing a story. It was kind of refreshing to do that and have something come out that I see potential in, because it was so low-stress. Normally when I have a BIG IDEA and want to write it out, I find it very stressful and often throw bits away in frustration instead of continuing to roll. This… wasn’t too bad. I could keep doing that.

I don’t know, it was an interesting and successful experiment, not only because I wrote a short story draft, but because, well, it did help me not to feel like a useless asshole. So good for me! Victory all around!